


THE BIG DAY JOB, or Five Times Nate and Sophie Weren't Having a Wedding and One Time They Did

by TrespassersWill



Category: Leverage
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bachelor Party, Bachelorette Party, Bridal Shower, Community: leveragexchange, Cons, F/M, Miami, Parker Being Parker, Pickpockets, Wedding, Weddings, nontraditional, strip clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2818865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrespassersWill/pseuds/TrespassersWill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate and Sophie are getting married, but they're not having a wedding -- at least, not that they know of...</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE BIG DAY JOB, or Five Times Nate and Sophie Weren't Having a Wedding and One Time They Did

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Krilymcc (KristiLynn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KristiLynn/gifts).



**Engagement**

“So when are you going to have the wedding?“ Parker asked, looking from Nate to Sophie and back again, her eyes shining.

Nate and Sophie glanced at each other. Sophie could read him like a book: _Do you want one? I don’t want one. I just want to get married._

Though she liked the idea of a wedding, her focus was on the man, not the ceremony. Sophie smiled comfortingly at Nate and turned back to Parker.

“I think we won’t have a wedding,” she said. “If that’s all right with Nate. We’ll just go and get married.”

Parker could give eyeroll like a teenager. “But you can’t get married without a wedding,” she said, “And if you don’t have a wedding that means we can’t come, and we want to come.”

Sophie glanced past Parker at Eliot, who was nodding, and Hardison, who was shaking his head and mouthing “no!”

“Parker, we can be legally married without a fancy ceremony and a party afterward,” Nate said. “And anyway, weddings are more trouble than they’re worth --”

Sophie frowned. Eliot coughed meaningfully. 

“-- and Sophie and I love each other. We don’t need a party to prove it,” he finished smoothly. A little too smoothly, Sophie thought, but that was Nate. 

Sophie linked her arm through Nate’s. The sparkle of the ring on her finger -- and it was a lovely ring, and really, truly hers -- nearly distracted her, but she recovered. “The important thing is that we are pledging ourselves to each other, not what dress I’m wearing and what flavor of cake we serve--”

“Lemon,” Eliot said, firmly, just as Hardison said “Spice cake,” and Parker said, “Duh, chocolate!”

Sophie didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.

**Save the Date**

The new Miami office of Leverage International was quiet. Hardison was still tweaking the new computer systems, while Eliot worked up potential menus for the wine bar downstairs and grumbled about the availability of fresh seasonal produce in summer in Florida.

Parker sailed into the room, her blonde hair scraped into a severe bun and an impressive stack of magazines in her arms. 

Eliot, glancing up, noted that she had the same look of fierce concentration as when she was planning a new heist. Obviously, something was in the wind. He leaned back, waiting for the announcement, as Hardison smiled at her. 

“Hey, babe,” he said. “What’s up?” He took a swig of Orange Squeeze.

Parker dropped the stack of magazines on the table. Each one had a bride on the cover. “So how long does it take to plan a wedding?” she asked.

Hardison’s spit-take was epic. Eliot didn’t manage to get out of the spray zone in time.

“Dammit, Hardison, I like this shirt,” Eliot complained, grabbing a handful of napkins from the bar and mopping at his chest. “And I hate that fake orange smell --”

“Parker. Baby. What are you talking about?” Hardison asked, ignoring Eliot’s complaints.

“Nate and Sophie, of course. If they’re not going to have a wedding then we’ll need to plan one for them,” Parker said, picking up one of the magazines. “Don’t you think this dress would look nice on Sophie?”

“Parker, if they want a wedding, they’ll plan one,” Eliot said, but he could tell from the look in Parker’s eyes that it was already too late.

“I think we could probably invite them here to see the new offices and have the wedding locally,” she said, ignoring his comment exactly as he knew she would. “We just need a license and someone to marry them.”

Eliot glanced at Hardison. If they were going to put a stop to this madness, they had to do it now, before things went too far. Hardison looked at him, gave a small nod, and then turned back to Parker.

“I can hack the clerk of the court to get them a license,” he said, and Eliot knew they were doomed.

Parker grinned, suddenly gleeful. “Great! Now we just need someone to perform the ceremony...”

It was already too late. Eliot sighed. “Fine. I can marry them. I’m ordained.”

Both Parker and Hardison stared at him. “You _what_?” Hardison finally spluttered.

“I got ordained for a con,” Eliot shrugged. “But it’s real, so...”

“Great!” Parker smiled. “Now we just have to plan the wedding.”

**Bridal Shower**

“Let me get this straight,” Tara said. “You’ve invited us here for a _bridal shower_.” 

“But the bride doesn’t know it’s a shower and in fact doesn’t know she’s going to be a bride,” Maggie added.

Parker smiled. So far, everything was going according to plan. “That’s it! I mean, she knows she’s going to marry Nate because she said yes when he asked her. But they can’t get married without a wedding, and Sophie won’t do a wedding because she thinks Nate doesn’t want one. So we’re going to do one for them, only we can’t tell them until they’re actually, you know, in the wedding.”

Tara and Maggie exchanged looks, and Maggie said, “Parker. I’m not really sure that this is a good idea --”

“It’s a great idea. I have it all planned out, and I looked up everything so I know exactly what we have to do. There has to be a shower, so we’re having lunch together.” Parker grinned at both of her shower guests. “And we can go out to South Beach tonight. That will count as the bachelorette party. I left the bachelor party up to the boys.”

“Parker...” Maggie said, and her voice was taking on the tone that inevitably meant someone was going to _explain something_ , “I think it’s really sweet that you want to do this for Nate and Sophie, but... weddings are personal. They have to mean something to the bride and groom --”

“I know! That’s why I’ve made sure to include the things that mean the most to them.” Parker stood up. “So hurry up, we need to decorate the office before Sophie gets here.” She pulled out a box of streamers and other decorations.

Tara lifted a stack of cardboard cutouts. “What are these?”

“Oh, I made pictures of all the jewels Sophie ever stole,” Parker said. “The ones I know about anyway. I figured we’d hang them up with the streamers.” 

Tara looked like she wanted to protest, but Maggie shook her head, and the two women helped Parker hang up the streamers and pictures. “Wait, Sophie stole _this_?” Tara muttered. “I thought I stole that one...”

“She did, after you did. Or you did after she did? Something like that...” Parker realized suddenly that this was dangerous ground. “Anyway, we’re almost done. Then I can set up the games.”

“Oh no. Not shower games,” Maggie groaned. “They’re annoying!”

“They’re traditional!” Parker looped the last bit of streamer around the lamp and headed for the closet, where she’d put all the wedding paraphernalia. Really, it required a lot of _stuff_ to get married. She hadn’t thought about that when she’d started planning this thing. “I read all about it in the magazines. There have to be games at the shower.”

Tara said, a little too quickly, “If you’re trying to keep the wedding a secret, the shower games will give it away.”

“Not these games.” Parker dragged out a large mannequin dressed in a tuxedo. “Pick the pocket of the groom, er, well-dressed man,” she explained. “And . . . wait for it . . .” she returned to the closet and dragged out a trunk. “Who can construct the best disguise out of odds and ends!” There was a bit of white tulle trailing out of one corner; she hastily poked it back in.

“Maybe you know what you’re doing after all,” Maggie muttered.

**Bachelor Party**

The decibel level at the club was incredible -- the music was thumping so loud Hardison thought his heartbeat might be rewriting itself to match, and people had to shout at each other to be heard. Overhead, in glittering cages, girls twirled around poles wearing so little it might as well have been nothing at all.

Nate looked from one to the other, disbelief on his face. They’d done a lot of things for a lot of cons, but hanging out in a strip club was not one of them.

“SO WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?” Nate asked, and Hardison belatedly remembered that they’d convinced him to come here by telling him they needed him for a con.

Eliot leaned over. “WOMEN,” he said, with a wide grin.

Fortunately, Hardison was prepared for this. He scribbled on a napkin and slid it over to Nate:

_Local sugar baron is seeing one of these women on the side; we’re here to figure out which one. We think he’s funneling money through her to a drug ring._

Nate read it, nodded, and carefully ripped it up, then leaned back, downed his second whiskey of the evening. “GOT IT,” he shouted, and stood up.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Eliot asked.

“TO ASK QUESTIONS,” Nate replied.

“NO NO NO NO,” Eliot said. “OBSERVATION ONLY.” He pointed at the girl in the cage overhead, who seemed to be wearing nothing but a strip of fabric and a lot of glitter.

Nate raised an eyebrow. Hardison played the mastermind card.

“WE’RE FOLLOWING PARKER’S PLAN,” he said. It was true, as far as it went.

Nate paused, considered, and then nodded and sat back down. “ALL RIGHT.”

In the cage in front of them, a woman lifted herself gracefully up onto a pole and slithered around it, legs extended and then curling to grip the pole as she hung, spinning slowly. The glitter on her skin sparkled in the colored lights.

_I hope my Nana never finds out about this..._

**Tie the Knot**

Morning came too early. They hadn’t found the girl who was dating the sugar baron, though they’d visited two more clubs before packing it in for the night. Nate rubbed at his eyes, looked at the clock, and then looked around for Sophie.

He was the only one in their hotel room, though. Sophie must have stayed with the girls; Parker had said they were having a girls’ night out. Really, it was a nice thing, having a sort of office-warming and reunion. He suspected that Parker probably wanted to show him that she was really, truly handling things well -- not that he’d doubted it.

The door opened, and Parker herself came in. “Nate, I need your help,” she said. “There’s a party downstairs, and the sugar baron is there, but it’s black-tie. Here’s a tux.” She held out a perfectly pressed tuxedo on a hanger.

There was something... shifty in the way she didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Parker,” he said, gently. “You guys can handle this. You’re doing fine. You don’t actually need my help.”

“I know that,” she said, scornfully. “We’ve run lots of cases without you. This is just one very specific thing.”

“Parker -- I feel like hell, and I’d like about three more hours of sleep. We were out trying to track down the girl until 2 a.m. last night --”

Parker looked at him, looked at the tux, looked at the clock, and he realized that something was going on -- something other than the sugar baron and the missing stripper. “Just put it on,” she insisted, sounding a bit panicky. “We need you, so put on the tux and come downstairs now?”

He sighed. For the team, then. Nate stood up, took the tux from Parker, and said, “All right. Give me a few minutes to dress.”

“I’ll wait in the hallway.”

She did, too. And made him comb his hair again, and gave him two aspirin and a glass of water, which was considerate. Then she hauled him downstairs and out to the hotel loggia.

It was usually a restaurant, but the tables had been moved to the side, and there was a little archway decked with flowers in front of the fountain. An awful, horrible, wonderful suspicion filled Nate.

“Parker, is this --”

She turned him toward her, pinned a boutonniere on his lapel, and then tucked her arm in his. “No time to argue, we only have the loggia for another hour before the restaurant opens and we’re not exactly doing this with permission,” she said, towing him to the archway, where Eliot was standing beneath the flowers.

“Not my idea, man,” he said, as Parker deposited Nate at the front and then raced back down the aisle.

“But you went along with it?”

“She’s the mastermind --” Eliot began, but the music started and Hardison stepped in beside Nate.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I’m your best man because Eliot’s ordained so he had to be the minister.”

“Eliot’s -- _what_?”

“And you’d better look now because they’re coming,” Eliot prompted.

Nate looked. Parker, suddenly wearing a soft rose dress, was walking down the aisle, with Maggie and Tara in identical dresses behind her, and then...

...and then Sophie. His Sophie, wearing something sleek and white and glorious, and carrying a bouquet and somehow looking both amused and horrified at the same time. She joined him in front of Eliot, looked up into his eyes, gave him a warm smile and said, “We were conned.”

Somehow, as he looked into Sophie’s dark eyes full of stars and hope and love, he didn’t care. “Well, we did train them to be the best,” he pointed out.

Eliot coughed. “If you’re ready?”

Nate looked at Sophie. She looked at him, and nodded.

“Dearly beloved...”

**Honeymoon**

Late that afternoon, Sophie shifted on her poolside chair, letting the sarong tied around her waist display a bit more leg for Nate’s benefit. “You have to admit, it was very sweet of them.”

“Sweet? They made me go to strip clubs.”

Sophie grinned. “Oh, poor you.”

“It is _oh poor me_. I thought we were looking for a sugar baron’s mistress. I think I’m still deaf from the music. What did they do for you?”

“A luncheon that I _think_ was meant to be a shower, and then -- well.” She winked at him. “Supposedly we were looking for a record producer who was scamming would-be recording artists, which meant karaoke.”

“What did you sing?”

“Mmmm, that would be telling.” She reached out one lazy hand and trailed her fingers along the inside of his wrist. “What about you? How many strippers did you have to examine?”

“That would be telling,” he parroted, teasing, and thankfully, she laughed.

“All the same... it was nice,” Sophie said. “Not the karaoke. The wedding.”

Nate caught her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed the wedding ring he’d placed there only that morning (planted by Parker in his pocket on the way to the loggia). “It was. You looked beautiful, and -- Parker was right. Having a wedding, with the team there -- it was nice.”

“So -- did you tell them we were already married?” Sophie asked.

“No. Did you?”

Sophie shook her head. “It seemed like the wrong thing to do, when they went to so much trouble.”

“Well, then, there’s only one thing to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Enjoy our second honeymoon.”


End file.
